Bombings, Earthquakes, Regimes...

As I spent time in prayer for the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing, I couldn't get the image of what happened out of my mind.  Limbs being severed, blood spattered on fan's faces, grotesque scenes of war populating my imagination while praying for the people who endured such things.  I wondered, "How can I come to terms with such suffering?"  Quickly God answered me with one verse, Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--"

I automatically think of the Garden of Eden.  There Adam is, the cool breeze gently pushes through the lush canopy of trees as God instructs him, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

"When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:13-15)

Eve, instructed by her husband of what God has said, stands gazing at the intriguing fruit of the forbidden tree.  It shines beautifully in the glimmer of her eyes as she sees it fit to make her wise.  Her desire burns.  She second guesses what God has said.  She has a choice, she is no robot, and with one bite, turns to her husband who feels the same desire burning.

The next scene is one of shame.  "Adam, where are you?  Why are you hiding?"  A new sensation fills the heart of the man, it is fear. "I was naked, so I hid myself in the trees."  Suddenly, with a crushing jolt, the man realizes that what God has said was true.  He bumbles a few words, seeks to cast the blame, but God righteously decrees, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;

    through painful toil you will eat food from it

    all the days of your life.

 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

    and you will eat the plants of the field.

 By the sweat of your brow

    you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

    since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

    and to dust you will return.”

There were no reporters there.  No one to ask "How could this have happened?"  There was only God.  He knows how Boston Massacres happen.  He knows how North Korean dictators kill their people for gain.  He knows how Iranian farmers are slaughtered after the land which they toil strikes them in their sleep.

We have always dealt with the prospect of death.  Wars have always taken the lives of the innocent.  Selfishness has always deprived newborns of their lives.  Yet, "no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone."  Therefore, God is not responsible for the death that dogs us.  Severed limbs and blood spattered faces are the product of another's sinful desire.  When full grown, his scheme brings forth death and the cycle of sin continues. 

Does God, therefore, sit back and relax on His throne and declare a holy, "I told you so?"  No, He has taken action.  Death was our choice and we chose it, but God dealt death the death blow in Christ.  Death is simply not the end.  Yes, it is a problem, but it is not the final authority.  The author of Hebrews says, "It is appointed man once to die, then after this the judgment." We too should recognize that death is a byproduct of sin and suffering is a byproduct of a world filled with it, but death is not the end.  God is still the final authority and when we stand before Him, just before He makes all things new, He will ask whether or not we escaped this doomed world by the blood of His son.  

Bombings happen, wars happen, earthquakes and cataclysmic events take countless lives.  In all of this, however, God still offers our passage from death to life through faith in His Son's perfect sacrifice.  Who else can offer such peace and solace in times of unrest?  There is none.

We chose our way rather than God's.  He lovingly provided all for us, but we selfishly took that which we shouldn't have.  We chose for our ground to be cursed.  We chose to toil painfully.  We chose the thorns and thistles and have chosen to return to the dust.  Yet, in all His mercy, God still offers to do things His way once more, He offers an escape route.

My heart is with those who suffer and my promise to you is God's; Eternal life.  It is my prayer that one day, as we stand before the throne of God, after the books are opened and shut, we shall see the New Heaven and New Earth descending and we shall raise our voices triumphantly,

 "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."